The biggest poker tournament in the world has its final table set for the ultimate showdown. The World Series of Poker still gets the most attention, and we’ll see the final showdown later this year. Jesse Sylvia of Massachusetts holds the chip lead with more than 44 million chips. Andras Koroknai of Hungary is in second place with around 30 million chips and Greg Merson is in third with nearly 29 million. When you look at the field and the leaders you start to understand how this is a worldwide phenomenon.

Also, we now have so many poker stars who got their start with online poker, and the innovation just keeps coming. You have tons of players building up their skills with iPad poker, and off course there are many online events for the world series of poker. Combine that with all of the states that are adding gambling and poker, and we’re seeing the popularity of the game continuing to grow.

This bodes well for all sorts of companies. The feds have basically said this is a game of skill, deferring now to the states to regulate this going forward. In some ways this is creating a free for all. How it evolves precisely nobody knows, except that there are more places to play and more players with easy access. So we’ll likely see this event drawing a ton of attention around the world for years to come.